And He takes and He takes
by jjabramss
Summary: She didn't remember much. Her memory of the moment was fuzzy. She was sixteen. Seddie, multi-chaper fic.
1. Chapter 1

"If you keep fighting kids you are going to be coming here more often," Her mother stood by the door looking down at her phone, texting. It was probably the taxi cab driver that she'd met when she was coming home from a poker tournament or it was the fire fighter that she had been setting fire to stuff in their house to meet. "I can't afford for you to be coming to see the doctor all the time."

"This is the first time since I was eight that I've been to see a doctor," Sam responded. "They still had my height down as four feet three inches. I think you can handle once a decade."

Her mother didn't even acknowledge that she had said anything. She was typing away on her phone. Sam sighed it wasn't even her fault. She was just trying out a new iCarly bit with Gibby, and yeah he didn't want to do it but still.

There was a soft knock on the door and a woman opened it slowly. It knocked against Sam's mother's foot. She looked up at the doctor who was entering expecting an apology. When one didn't come she put her phone away and crossed her arms.

"Excuse me," She said. "What makes you think that you can just come barging in here? This is a doctor's office."

"Yes, Mrs..." She flipped through a few sheets, "Puckett. I know that, I am the doctor."

"You can't be a doctor." She responded, "You're a woman."

"Mom." Sam scolded. She could not believe that her mom could be so stupid sometimes. Her mother picked up her purse from the chair that it had been thrown on and rolled her eyes.

"I'll be in the waiting room." The doctor stepped out of her way and she stomped past her and out of the room. The doctor turned to Sam who had a slight blush creeping up her neck. This is why she didn't bring her mother places with her.

"I'm sorry about her." Sam said, "She was born rude."

"Oh no, it's fine. I'm your doctor, Charlie Phillips" She responded. She shook Sam's hand and then looked through the chart that she had brought with her. "I notice that this is your first time in a medical treatment area in quite a few years. So, why did you decide to come in?"

"I was messing around with a friend about a month ago and I think I hurt myself." Sam said, she rubbed her right forearm, "The pain has just gotten progressively worse."

"Okay. Let me just take a look at it." Doctor Phillips said. She put down the chart and walked over to Sam. She felt around her arm, asking Sam where it hurt and when it hurt. Sam responded by wincing and groaning. Charlie walked back over to the counter where the chart was, looked through it and then turned back to Sam. "It doesn't seem like it is broken, but there could be a hairline fracture in your radius- that's this bone here." She gestured to the inside of her right forearm, "So you're nurse is going to come in here and take you to get an x-ray done. We will get the results back in about twenty-four hours. So we will call you then, but until then I'm going to take all the precautions and I want you to wear a sling that your nurse will bring you. Okay?"

Sam nodded and watched the doctor leave. It only took a few minutes for the nurse who had helped her when she first got there to pop back into the room.

"Well we're going to head on down to the x-ray room and then I will help you with your sling."

Sam followed her down the hall and into a room. A long slab of stainless steel was in the middle with the x-ray above it. A white wall sectioned off a small area with a large window in it. Sam sat down on the stool that the nurse had set down for her. She had a bib that had lead in it placed on top of her and her arm was moved around until the nurse decided that it was in the perfect position. The x-rays took all of three minutes and before she knew it she was walking out of the office in a blue and white sling, her mother complaining that there was no way she really needed x-rays and that this was all just an elaborate hoax for them to get more money out of her.

When she got to Bushwell Plaza for the iCarly rehearsal she texted Carly before she got on the elevator to warn her that she had a sling on but that Carly should not freak out because it was no big deal.

Still when she stepped out on the ninth floor Carly was there, tears in her eyes, she was hugging Sam and babbling about how she couldn't believe that she had gotten hurt here and how she was so sorry, like it was her fault.

"Carls. Carls." Sam kept repeating, trying to get her friend to calm down. When Carly let go of her Sam explained how it was nothing, the doctor was just being cautious. "I'll be able to take it off tomorrow and everything will be fine."

"You're sure it's not broken?" Carly asked wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her pink and blue-stripped shirt.

"Yes. I am sure." Sam said, of course she wasn't sure but she couldn't have Carly crying and blaming herself the whole rehearsal. "Where's Freddie?"

"Oh, he's getting a SMD-something techy." Carly said shrugging off whatever Freddie was doing. She didn't really care about what cables he had to use, she wasn't really interested in any tech stuff.

Once Freddie got back with a cable that was supposed to make the streaming of iCarly episodes lag .65 seconds less they started rehearsal. It went off with out a hitch and they were ready for the show on Friday. She couldn't wait to do the new bit she'd thought of on the show, it would be a hit she just knew it.

They celebrated with Strawberry Splat smoothies and a chick-flick that Freddie was opposed to but stayed and watched anyway. It had started snowing while they were there, and it would be inevitable that there would be no school the next day. That's how Seattle worked it never had half-assed precipitation. Sam decided to stay over, she slept on the couch and Spencer made "No School Waffles" for them in the morning.

She got a call from her mother at noon. She had to go back to see the doctor, she didn't tell Carly, because she would freak out because this most likely meant that Sam would have to get a cast put on and Carly would turn into a crying mess. So Sam told the Shay's that her mother had misplaced her bra and she had to go find it. Spencer shivered and groaned because that was not something he liked to think about. Carly told her to come back over when they found it because they always spent snow days together.

Her mother picked her up in front of the Bushwell Plaza and spent the whole ride listening to her mother complain and tell her that she shouldn't need to go to the doctor two days in a row. It wasn't Sam's choice to have a broken arm but she couldn't tell her mother this. She pulled up to the doors and Sam got out.

"I'll be waiting for you out here," She called out the window. "Don't take too long."

Sam sighed, put on a brave face, and entered the building. She walked up to the receptionist and leaned towards the woman who was painting her nails a light blue color.

"I'm here for my appointment," She said, the woman looked up with a disgusted look. "I'm, uh, Samantha Puckett."

The woman's face fell and she stood up, motioned to a person that was out of Sam's sight. The door to the left of the reception window opened and the nurse who had helped her yesterday motioned for her to follow her. They were in exam room three. The doctor would be with her soon. It was all very nerve wrecking for her. Of course they must have done plenty of casts, but she had never had a broken bone. She'd never had anything happen to her. She fidgeted, tearing off small pieces of the paper that lined the exam table she sat on. Doctor Phillips entered.

She didn't remember much.

Her memory of the moment was fuzzy.

She was sixteen.

She was dying.


	2. Chapter 2

CT scan. MRI. X-ray after x-ray.

It wasn't how she'd planed to spend her weekend.

She had yet to tell anyone. She couldn't even tell her mother. A nurse had walked out to the car, tapped on the window and told her the news. There had been a non-stop flow of tears out of her mother. Sam hadn't cried once. She just sat there, empty.

She was sixteen. Of course that had put her more at risk for her cancer. Ewing sarcoma. She couldn't even pronounce what was killing her. They'd told her that with chemotherapy and radiation everything could work out for the better. There was a sixty percent survival rate, seventy-five percent if it was localized. She didn't know what most of the doctors were talking about when they tried to explain how it was all about her chromosomes and how her bones cells were mutated.

She'd had to tell Carly that she was sick; she'd missed school since she'd found out and she'd missed iCarly, which Carly had subsequently canceled. She promised the viewers an extra special show the next week. Sam didn't have the heart to tell her that she was going to be busy for a while. She didn't know how.

They called her sister who got herself to a doctor and was tested. She was fine; she had gotten all the good genes. Sam hated her for that, she didn't wish he sister would have what she had, but she wish that something would happen to her that would make her not so perfect.

She stayed in her bed when she wasn't getting tested. She didn't talk to anyone. She didn't eat. She barely slept. She couldn't do anything. This shouldn't have happened to her.

When Sam missed school on Monday Carly came over with soup and demanded that she see Sam. She came into her room and lay next to her on the bed, this is how Carly normally acted when Sam had a cold. She was more of a mother than anyone Sam had ever known, including her own mother.

"So, what do you have?" Carly asked her. Sam didn't respond she just stared at her ceiling. Carly sighed, "So it's bad then?"

They laid there in silence staring at her ceiling. Carly didn't ask any questions, she knew all she needed to right then. She held Sam's hand and she knew that when she was ready Sam would talk to her.

Carly came back the next day and Freddie came with her. Sam's mom made her come into the living room to see them. Carly's eyes were red and puffy; she'd obviously been crying which is probably why Freddie had decided to come with her. Sam just sat there, legs pulled up in front of her to block her from her friends.

"People at school have been asking about you." Freddie said quietly, he wasn't used to seeing Sam like this. Normally she was loud and abrasive, now she was looking sad and scared. He didn't think that she was scared of anything. He knew better now.

They ate sandwiches that her mother made them. They were turkey or chicken, none of them could really tell, but they ate anyway because that's what people do when they have nothing to say. Sam's mother whispered to her that she would have to tell them sooner or later and it was probably best if it was sooner so that they could help her through this. She couldn't tell them. Not when they were right there in front of her.

They left after they ate and Carly told her that she would be back the next day while she was hugging her. Freddie just stood back and shifted his weight while this was going on. He gave her a parting wave and they left.

She went back to her room and spent the night crying. The next day she went to the doctor's office again. They had her test results back and they had decided that with chemotherapy and radiation she should be okay. They explained to her what was going to happen, there would probably be vomiting and she wouldn't get much sleep. They told her she would lose her hair and more weight than was healthy. They pretty much told her she was going to want to die, but that they weren't going to let her.

She left the office with her mother, who had started obsessing over Sam ever since she was diagnosed. She asked her mom if she could take her to school and her mom was both shocked and scared, but did as she asked.

The halls were empty when she walked in. It was fifth period class. Right now she would be in Spanish with Senora Jackson. She opened her locker; everything was just as she left it. She wished that things looked different that everything looked destroyed and ugly instead of life going on she just wanted it to stop.

"Miss. Puckett, where is your hall pass?" she turned around to Benjamin Philter the hall monitor. He was tall, smelly, and no one liked to be with in ten feet of him, but he took his job very seriously.

"I don't need a hall pass." She spat back at him.

"Everyone. Needs. A. Hall. Pass." He responded. He took her by the shoulders and led her into the principal's office. His grip was tight on her shoulders and the more she twisted to get away from him the tighter he held her. He was muttering about "finally catching most wanted number one" and she knew that he was never going to let her out of this. He walked her right into Principal Franklin's office.

"Look who I found." He said with a smirk. He sat her down in a chair and backed up towards the door waiting for his recognition for bringing her in. Principal Franklin looked at her confused and saddened. He had to know.

"Can you please leave us Mr. Philter?" he asked. The boy's mouth opened and then closed like a fish trying to breath on land, he repeated this process a few times before he turned and left. He pulled the door shut behind him.

"Hi Ted." Sam said to him. She assumed her usual position on pulling her legs up to her chest and stared at him.

"Would you like to talk about it?" He asked her. She shook her head. "Have you told Carly and Freddie yet?"

"I can't." she muttered sadly. She looked at him, and knew that he understood. He always got her in a way that other adults couldn't. He got up and walked to the front of his desk. He squatted down to her eye level and looked at her.

"Would you like me to?" He asked. This was the first time that anyone had offered to tell her friends. The nurse had told her mom and her mom had told her sister, but no one had thought to tell Carly and Freddie. They had all assumed that she would want to tell them, but why would she want to do that? She nodded to him and he gave a small knowing nod before leaning in and hugging her.

She left the office and walked past Benjamin who was glaring at her. He must have really wanted to be the hall monitor that took down Sam Puckett, if only he knew. And she thought about telling him just to tell someone but she knew better than that, so she just kept walking into the hall, out of the school, to her mom's car. He settled in for the ride home.

"When did you tell Principal Franklin?" She asked her mother, her eyes never moved from the horizon outside of her window.

"He called the day before Carly came over. He was worried about you." She said.

Sam was quite the rest of the ride. She wondered if he would call them in during the next class or if he would wait until the end of the day. She wondered if they would tell other people. She was worried about Carly and Freddie, but she was most worried about Gibby finding out. He had been with her when she had gotten hurt and that lead to all of this. She hoped that he understood because while she often made Gibby the butt of her jokes she still cared about him.

When they got home her mother made her chicken noodle soup and Sam somberly ate. If tasted bland, but all food has tasted bland since she had found out. When she finished she took a shower for the first time in a week.

When she got out she examined herself in the mirror, besides the bags under her eyes she didn't look any different than she had before. She wanted to scream at her reflection. It was all wrong. She should not look like herself. Nothing should be the same.

Her mother knocked on the bathroom door and told her that she had just got a call from Spencer and she thought he said that they were coming over, but she couldn't really make out what he was saying.

Sam knew this meant that he didn't wait long before he called them in and told them. She wondered if it was going to be just Carly and Spencer or if the Benson's were coming over too. She put her clothes back on and went into the living room. Her wet hair clung to the back of her shirt and to her forehead.

She sat down in the chair she'd been in the last time Carly came over, knees pulled up to her chest she waited.


	3. Chapter 3

When Carly got there her eyes were puffy and red, she'd obviously been crying but Sam had expected that. Carly hugged her and cried because that was probably all she could do. She'd start trying to talk and burst into sobs again. Sam hugged her and patted her on the back.

Spencer stayed in the kitchen talking to her mother. She'd seen him when they came in and it looked like he'd been crying too but he seemed to be able to hold it together unlike his younger sister. She wished that she knew what they were talking about. She hated it when anyone talked to her mother when she wasn't around.

They were there for an hour before Carly stopped crying and she let go of Sam, it was mostly because she had to go pee. Carly was never very good at holding it so she got up and left Sam alone in her living room. Sam's mother popped her head out of the kitchen with a questioning look and Sam mouthed 'bathroom' to her. She nodded and went back into the kitchen.

Sam was tired of seeing Carly cry, she wished that no one around her would ever have to cry again. "It could be worse," she thought "I could be dying of AIDS. At least what I have is curable." No one else would look at it that way. Every silver lining had a cloud.

Freddie chose that moment to arrive. He'd not waited for someone to come to the door he simply barged in loaded down with a large tote bag. He startled Sam because it took him years to start simply letting himself into Carly's apartment. It took him six visits to start barging into her house. Before Sam could even react he started talking quickly without pausing to breath.

"I would have come sooner but I told my mother and she started crying which was weird because she never really seemed to like you I think it was because you always pick on me but that's just you and I would always tell her that anyway she made me go home and she made a casserole I don't know what kind but it smelled good when she was cooking it I also brought you some stuff." He paused to take a breath so that he could continue but Sam interrupted him.

"Have you ever heard of knocking, Benson?" she asked. It took all of ten seconds for Freddie to drop the bag that he was holding and attack Sam with a hug that would have knocked her over if she weren't already sitting. He was crying too.

Sam sat there stiff as a board. She'd seen Carly cry plenty of times, over boys, over grade, over everything. Freddie never cried. Not when she spilled his 'I've-Never-Been-Kissed' secret, or when Carly turned him down, not even when he got hit by a truck. She'd assumed that nothing could make him cry because, like her, he'd cried all his tears when his father left.

Freddie mumbled "sorry" through his sobs but she stayed there hugging her. Everyone thought that's what she wanted to be hugged and cried over but she would have rather been brought a container full of meatballs and they could talk about people that they hated or liked or thought were weird. Carly came out of the bathroom and saw Freddie crying which caused her to break out in sobs. She joined in the one-sidded hug and the two of them awkwardly engulfed Sam.

"I, uh, thought you brought me something." Sam managed to get out between the sounds of their sobs. It seemed like the only logical way to get out of the tears that they would soon be drowning her in. Freddie let go of her reluctantly and walked back over to his bag. The belongings were jumbled but nothing was broken. He set the casserole on the table near their couch and walked back over to the two girls.

Carly had let go of Sam and had settled in a kneeling position next to the chair where she could grab Sam if she needed to. She let out soft, sad whimpers every now and then. Sam's chest ached at the thought of what she was doing to her friends. This hurt worse than anything she would have to suffer through in the next few years. Freddie coughed quietly drawing her attention back. He pulled out a small, black moleskin journal and handed it to Sam shyly, like he was embarrassed by it. She opened it up and flipped through it pages were filled with pictures of them and things they had celebrated together. It was as if the last five years of their time together had been compiled into one small book. She took a breath suddenly not realizing that she'd stopped breathing for a second.

"I've been making it for myself for a while now." Freddie said as he dug through the bag trying not to make eye contact with Sam. " I just thought that you should have it. To make you feel happier when you're feeling sad." He paused and glanced quickly at her. She was on the verge of tears, not sad tears though, and she'd never expected to be given a gift like this, especially not by Freddie Benson.

"I also have some books for your mom." He said, " I don't know if she actually reads but my mom wanted me to bring them." He pulled out book after book and stacked them up. She read the spines: _Coping with Cancer, The Human Side of Cancer, Facing Cancer, Facing Cancer Together_. They all contained the word that she dare not even whisper and she hated all of them. She wished that she could tear them up or burn them or yell at him for bringing them into her house.

"Carls." Spencer called from the kitchen, "I need you."

"Why?" Carly responded. She didn't even flinch when her name was called and she had no intention of moving unless it was absolutely necessary. Sam wondered if she would stay there over night clutched onto her.

"I just need you okay?" Spencer sounded urgent and Carly sighed a heavy, deep sigh that said 'I wish you'd just leave me alone' but of course Spencer was too far away to hear it. She debated on if she should go or not, Sam could see her internal conflict.

"I'll be here when you get back." She said. She almost added 'it's not like I'm going to die by then' but realized that Carly would probably start sobbing again and she had just stopped that. Carly nodded, got up slowly and made her way into the kitchen. Freddie had begun digging through the bag again and Sam lightly kicked him. He jerked his head up quick enough to give himself whiplash.

"Thank you." She said quietly, she knew that 'thank you' didn't accurately depict how thankful she actually was, but it had to do for now.

Instead of responding he went back to the bag. A small smile brushed across his lips before he finally found what he was looking for. He pulled out a small, yellow flower.

"It's supposed to be good luck." He said holding it out to her. She'd seen it before in graveyards and growing on the sides of the highway. "You give it to people when they are going on new but, uh, risky journeys. And that reminded me of you." She took the small flower from him. It was nothing special, a simple gesture, but in that moment she knew why she had always taken it easy on him.

If it had been any other boy, any boy that she didn't have all that history with, any boy who she'd not known as intimately as they had known each other she would have kissed him. But she couldn't because he was Freddie and she was Sam and she may have cancer but that didn't change anything.


	4. Chapter 4

Carly came back as soon as she could. She'd said that Spencer wanted to talk to her about something, but that it wasn't important enough to talk about now. They stayed there through dinner and ate the casserole that Freddie had brought.

It was something that vaguely reminded Sam of her dad. He was the only one in the family who knew how to work the oven and he would make them dinner when he didn't have to work a double shift. She hated being reminded about her dad so she didn't eat. She moved her food around a lot and created enough distractions that it seemed like she had eaten her fair share when her mother cleared the plates.

When they had finished dinner, it was silently decided that it was time to go. Carly would have normally petitioned Spencer to let her stay the night or she would have forced Sam to come over, but she'd been worn out from the day's events and didn't have enough energy to do much of anything really.

Carly wrapped her in a hug that lasted longer than most people would be comfortable with. Spencer had to lightly tug on her shoulders to finally get her to let go. He in turn gave her a quick squeeze goodbye and walked out onto the front lawn. Carly waited as long as she could to follow him. She told Sam that she would text her as soon as she could, which Sam took to mean once she was in the car, possibly on the way there. Freddie stayed back awkwardly shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He'd asked Spencer to give him a ride home so he would be leaving but he didn't know how he was supposed to say goodbye to her.

"Are you going or what, Benson?" Sam asked. She put her hands on her hips and looked at him. He didn't meet her gaze instead he opted to stare at the area to the left of her where the Puckett family photos hung. There was one of her and Melanie, which Freddie stared at a bit longer than was normal. He thought that they looked rather happy in the photo and wondered if Sam remembered when that photo was taken.

"Fredweird, are you even listening to me?" She asked him. He gave a small nod and lowered his eyes to stare at his shoes.

"I, um, I was just –" he paused and looked up at her. She was slightly exasperated but overall she was Sam, wonderful, lovely Sam.

"You were just, what?" She asked. There was no anger in her voice, and he wondered if that was just because she was sick or if it was because she wasn't really angry with him.

"Nothing." He managed to mutter, " I was just, nothing." A small smile played at the corners of her mouth and she rolled her eyes, just like old times.

"Get out of here, Benson." She said half-joking, half-sarcastically. He backed out of the house onto the small concrete slab that the Puckettes called a porch.

"I'll be back." He said.

"Of course you will." She replied and with that, she shut the door. She heard Spencer's car start, the low hum of the engine slowly disappeared as they made their way down the street.

Before Sam was able to make it into her bedroom she got a text from Carly, typical. Carly was telling her how wonderful she was, also typical. Then went on to talk about how Freddie was sobbing in the backseat like a small child and how if she wanted to make fun of him for it Carly would allow it this once, not so typical.

She knew that Carly was just trying to make her feel better; she also knew that Freddie was probably not crying at all. She texted Carly that she was planning on going to sleep because she was exhausted, which was true.

Instead of sleeping, she lay on her bed and stared at her ceiling. She remembered doing this when she was little, staring up at the ceiling, finding patterns in the texture. She often would imagine people and places, for which she would make up fantastic stories that she would tell to her father.

He would sit next to her bed every night before she went to sleep and she would tell him stories about the places and people who lived on her ceiling until she drifted off to sleep. She hated thinking about her dad, but it was hard not to when little things reminded her of him. She'd not thought about those lines in her ceiling for years, having opted to sleep on her side or at Carly's, but tonight she'd made the mistake of looking up.

Sam hadn't gotten much sleep when her mother shook her awake at three in the morning to take a dark blue pill with something that vaguely tasted like tea. It was Thursday, normally this would be the day she would rehearse for iCarly but she knew that they wouldn't be doing iCarly for a while. She wondered if Carly and Freddie told anyone, she wondered if they told Gibby who would take it the hardest because, well, he's Gibby.

Her mother made her evacuate her room at seven because it needed to be cleaned, so she took up residence on the couch. Bad reality television had become her kryptonite by noon. Teen Mom had started a marathon at ten and she had become obsessed with yelling at the television all the things the 'mothers' were doing wrong.

"If only they'd had this show when my mom was a kid." Sam thought, "Maybe she wouldn't have been so bad at mothering."

Sam's mom had to leave at one to go get groceries because they were out, which would have been surprising if they were anyone but the Puckettes. Sam just burrowed down into the fortress of blankets and pillows she'd made on the couch and let her mom go.

She was in the middle of telling off Farrah when the phone rang, she groaned. A call on the landline in the middle of the day normally meant telemarketer or debt collector. She pushed herself off the couch and made her way into the kitchen. She picked up the off white receiver that hung from the wall.

"What do you want?" She asked with a tone of disdain.

"Sam?" an older man asked, "That's you right Sam?"

She wanted to slam the phone back onto the base or disconnect the phone line from the jack, but she found herself unable to move.

"Sam?" he repeated, "Can you hear me?"

"I- Wh-" her words came out broken, but she cleared her throat and responded, "What do you want dad?"


End file.
